Invasion of Privacy

“great guest moment” a member of the hotel “team” had created during my stay. A nice touch from awfully nice people, but the way things had gone so far in Big Sky Country, I didn’t expect to be completing it.

24

    O utside the United terminal at Logan , Primo Zuppone said, “Cuddy, you look like shit warmed over.”
    “Thanks. How about some music?”
    He checked all the mirrors of his rented Lincoln as we moved onto the loop road. “I’m not into music right now, you don’t mind. I’m more into survival. Where the fuck you been?”
    “Studying the effects of jet lag.”
    “What?”
    As we took the back way toward the tunnel, and eventually the city, I told Zuppone about the trip to Idaho and what I’d discovered.
    “You’re saying that Ozzie and Harriet turn out to be...” Primo shook his head, as though he were trying to clear it. “So, it’s them?”
    “Probably.”
    “What’s with ‘probably’? We gotta know for sure, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Weil, how do we do that?”
    “I’ve had seven hours in the air to think about it.”

    “Hello?”
    “Mrs. Stepanian?”
    “Yes?”
    “This is John Cuddy. I interviewed you and your husband at Plymouth Willows regarding Hendrix Management?”
    “Oh. Oh, yes.”
    “I was wondering if the two of you would be home tonight.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yes. I have some information that you might like to hear before anyone else does.”
    “Information? What kind of—”
    “Let’s say seven-thirty at your place?”
    “I don’t know if Steven can—”
    “See you then.”
    I hung up the pay phone outside the grocery store in East Boston . Thankfully, too, given how much colder the air had gotten in just the thirty-some hours I’d been away.
    From the driver’s window of the Lincoln , Primo said, “We set?”
    “Just one more call.”
    I dialed Nancy’s number in Southie, leaving a message on the answering machine that I was back in Boston and would call her later.
    After I got in the passenger’s side, Zuppone put the gearshift into drive, and we pulled slowly away from the curb.
    “Where to now, Cuddy?”
    “My place.”
    “To pick up your Honda?”
    I looked at him. “Among other things.”
    Primo said, “Good idea,” then checked all his mirrors.

    Opening the front door of unit 41, Lana Stepanian angled her head and shoulders to peer around me. “I don’t see your car.”
    “I wanted to talk with Paulie Fogerty first, so I parked over by his house. It was such a nice night, I decided to walk from there.”
    I brushed past her then, moving into the living room with its marshmallow furniture. We seemed to be alone. “Your husband couldn’t make it?”
    Lana Stepanian joined me, perching on the arm of an easy chair. Alert. “Steven had a meeting for the School Committee that he just couldn’t reschedule.”
    “I know how that can be.” Going by the closet and downstairs bath to the sliding glass door, I looked through it onto the rear deck, then tried the handle. Locked. I slipped the latch and slid the door open.
    Stepanian stayed where she was but twisted her torso toward me. “What are you doing?”
    I made a ceremony of sliding the door shut solidly, then clicking at the lock. “Just making sure he hadn’t come back unexpectedly.”
    “Steven?”
    I returned to the living room, Stepanian turning again as I took the chair across from her. It swallowed me, but then I wasn’t banking on being able to get up quickly.
    “Steven.”
    “But, Mr. Cuddy, I told you he’s at a meeting.”
    “So you did. Meaning he’s not upstairs or hiding in the closet, either.”
    She just watched me.
    “Right?” I said.
    Stepanian folded her arms irritably across her chest. “I think you’d better tell me what you came to tell us, and then leave.”
    I liked that she wanted to hear what I knew first. “Mrs.—can I call you Lana, by the way? It’ll make the rest of this flow a lot more easily.”
    Carefully enunciating each syllable, Stepanian said, “Whatever will be quickest.”
    “We have to start some years back, when you were still a teenager, maybe even early teens. You fell in love, and, dream of dreams, the love was reciprocated. You were very happy, but also very worried, because the two of you weren’t supposed to be in love. Not that kind of love, anyway, and so you had to be very careful as well.”
    No reaction.
    “But I guess you were also a terrific actress, and your lover an actor, because while